


Happy Anniversary

by RH18



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: (because when isn't there with those two), F/M, Gen, Oneshot, Sexual Tension, post episode: s01 ep10 Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 16:43:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15514107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RH18/pseuds/RH18
Summary: Despite the gun in her hand, she'd never felt more in danger. She had to be smart – how could she get out of this situation alive? How could she pass this test?





	Happy Anniversary

The gun shook slightly, her hand trembling. She raised the other one to steady it, focusing on slowing her breathing, even as her mind raced faster and faster.

_ How had this even happened? _

Rio should be in jail now, or in a holding cell, or... just... not in her dining room, sprawled nonchalantly in a chair by her panting, bleeding husband. She didn’t know how much of the damage was from the car accident – she hadn’t gone to see Dean in the hospital, too disgusted to face him. But judging from the fresh blood, the torn shirt, and Rio’s bruised and bloodied knuckles…

She needed more time to figure out what was happening.

“This doesn’t make sense. You would never give me a loaded gun.” Her voice, mercifully, held steady as she stared down the barrel at him.

He smirked, stayed infuriatingly silent.

“This is a test, right? And I’m not that stupid. I kill you, and there’s no way I’ll still be alive at the end of the week, let alone the  _ king _ .” She spat the word out with venom. “I’m sure there are plenty of other people in the ranks who want to move up, and they’re not going to let some suburban housewife fill the power vacuum.”

Dean’s brow was furrowed, and he was looking at her like he had no idea who she was.

Well, he didn’t.

“Or maybe you just want to see if I have it in me to kill someone. Anyone.” She slowly moved the gun to the left, but kept her eyes on Rio. The smirk was still scrawled across his face, like he didn’t have the smallest concern about how this was going to end up.

Beth kept her voice low, but Dean’s stuttered apologies and pleas died out as soon as she started speaking. “I was trying to forgive you, Dean, I really was, trying to make myself feel interested in my old life again. But I’m not. Do you know the hospital ran your bloods?”

Every part of his face that wasn’t red or swollen went pale. He opened his mouth, closed it again, looked down at the table. His lip trembled.

She addressed Rio again. “I don’t think you even know everything he’s done, do you? It’s just a lucky chance that he was here, and that he’s given me every reason to pull the trigger.”

Dean was definitely crying now, albeit silently. Rio was openly smiling, baring his teeth like a shark circling a wounded gull on the water. He leaned forward, his eyes raking down Beth once, then back up slowly.

“So Mama… who’s it going to be?”

She couldn’t keep stalling. She had to make a choice. And none of them seemed right.

She spoke very quietly.

“I’m not leaving my kids without a dad. He’s scum, but he loves them, and they love him.”

Rio barely nodded, and before she knew what was happening he’d stood up, so fast that the chair fell backwards, and in two paces he was on her. He grabbed the barrel of the gun with one hand, pushing it into his own abdomen, and grabbing a handful of her hair with the other. She gasped with the shock and pain and sudden proximity, his face just inches from hers, and stared down at their hands.

“So you made your choice then. Do it,” he growled, shaking the gun slightly. “Do it, or things won’t go easy for you.”

Her heart was still hammering in her chest, but suddenly a sense of calm washed over her, and she felt her body relax. She raised her eyes from his bloodied hand wrapped around the gold barrel of the gun, past his chest, the tattoo rising from the neck of his shirt, past his clenched jaw and lips set in a hard line, right up to his dark, blazing eyes.

She smiled, softly and slightly, and enjoyed the brief look of surprise on his face, quickly concealed once more.

When she spoke, it was almost a whisper.

“Things are never going to be easy for me again. That was true from the moment I let you back into my life. But I don’t mind.”

She let go of the gun, sliding her hands slowly off it so his grip stayed strong on the barrel.

“I don’t want to be you, Rio. Not yet. I want to learn from you, I want respect from you. Once I’ve earned that, well. We can discuss a partnership.”

Silence met her statement. There was the sound of a clock ticking in a distant room, and Dean’s quiet breathing.

“You think I’d trust you with that?”

“Eventually. Like I said, I’ll work to earn your respect, and your trust.”

He tilted his head up, licked his lips slowly, and walked –  _ prowled _ – around the table to where Dean still sat in terror and confusion. Staring at Beth, Rio raised the hand holding his gun, and brought it down sharply on Dean’s head. Beth started forwards, but stopped as Rio chuckled low in his throat.

“He ain’t dead. Just sleeping for a bit.”

Holding the gun out over the table, he ejected the magazine so she could see it. Beth hissed air out through her teeth.

“I  _ knew _ there were no –”

Before she could finish, he slid the magazine back in, pointed the gun at the floor and pulled the trigger. A shot cracked through the air, the power of it ricocheting through Beth’s abdomen, catching her breath in her throat.

Rio sniffed lightly, passed his thumb over the tip of his nose, gazing at her.

“Just one in the chamber. And if he’s managed to make you hate him, it should be in his skull right now. But you got them kids you keep mentioning.” He pulled Dean’s head up, looked at his face in disgust, then unceremoniously dropped it back onto the table. Still staring down at him, in a gravelly tone dripping with disdain, he drawled, “Happy anniversary.”

He sidled over to Beth, back to being casual, unaffected. He leaned towards her, planted a hand on the table on either side of her. She kept her face as blank as she could, not wanting to show her relief, her fear, her excitement… anything. “I guess you want me to start teaching you soon, darling, but I need to lay low for a while. Deal with him. Wait for me. I’ll be in touch.”

Grazing her hips slightly as he pulled his hands away from her, he backed up a few paces, eyes still burning into hers.

“And if you or your girls ever try to pull this shit again… You told me never to point a gun at you, and I won’t. But there are worse ways.”

Then he turned, headed to the door. He was gone.

Beth stayed frozen where she was for a while, still full of confusion and adrenaline and an unnameable hunger. She stared towards the door, towards where he’d gone, and wondered.

Had she passed the test?

**Author's Note:**

> So I don’t think that’s what’s really going to happen. In fact I’d probably be dissatisfied if it did – more drama needed! But I think the main thing in her mind will be the desire to protect herself, and protect her kids (which also means making sure Dean gets out alive). For Rio… he’s probably so, so angry and betrayed. I don’t reckon he was even considering killing the girls, so he must have been blindsided by what they did. And by the fact that he was betrayed by someone he (obviously) cares for, or at least fancies a whooole lot. But I mean, surely he’d be a bit impressed, despite himself...
> 
> ANYWAY, all this is to say: I cannot wait for season two, and I have no idea how they’re going to resolve this situation. Gah. Give me patience, please.


End file.
